Bonus Episode: Who Makes a Business Go-around?

Every successful startup is built on more than just a big idea. The founder might get the credit, but behind every enduring brand—whether it’s a tech startup like Canva, a beachy sunscreen brand like Sun Bum, or a disruptive product like Chomps—is a cast of people playing very specific roles. Each role is a gear in the machine.

While early on one person might wear every hat, scaling a business means gradually handing those hats to specialists. These aren't just job titles—they’re pillars of business architecture.

At the heart of every startup is a visionary—the person with the original idea, the problem to solve, and the will to try. This role is about strategy, long-term thinking, and brand DNA. Founders like Melanie Perkins at Canva or RJ Scaringe at Rivian didn’t just stumble on a product—they saw gaps in their industries and set out to fill them. Visionaries live in the future, constantly asking “what if” and “why not.”

In the early days, the visionary is the company. They're building the first offer, talking to customers, posting on social media, and pitching investors. But staying in visionary mode while the company grows requires one thing: knowing when to let go of execution and start building a team to carry the weight.

If the visionary lights the fire, sales keeps it burning. It’s simple: no matter how good your product is, someone has to sell it. That might mean cold calls, DMs, emails, or closing deals face-to-face. In the beginning, the founder often plays this role too.

Look at Chomps, Pete Maldonado personally pitched their meat sticks to retail buyers until he got traction. Before there were national distributors or wholesale reps, there was hustle. Sales isn't just about transactions too. It's about storytelling, follow-up, managing objections, and building trust at scale. Eventually, a real sales team takes over, systematizes it, and scales it.

If sales converts interest into money, marketing creates the interest in the first place. This is the engine that brings in leads, grows an audience, and positions the brand. From a TikTok video that goes viral to a Google search ad that gets clicks, marketing connects products with people.

But great marketing goes deeper than tactics: it builds emotional resonance. Sun Bum didn’t sell sunscreen through scientific charts or fear-based messaging. It sold a lifestyle. Their monkey logo, beachy yellow packaging, and the signature smell made people want to be part of the brand. That’s branding as a value proposition. And that’s marketing done right.

Today, marketing is equal parts creative and analytical. It’s about reaching the right audience, testing what works, and building systems that scale—so that lead generation doesn’t rely on a lucky hit.

Behind every sale is a system. Operations is the role that makes the business run: supply chain, customer service, HR, logistics, finances, and everything in between. These folks make the trains run on time.

You won’t see them on the homepage, but without them, you have chaos. Think of Rivian purchasing a fully equipped Mitsubishi factory before even launching a vehicle. That was an operational masterstroke—planning for scale, not scrambling to survive. Or Liquid Death, whose backend logistics had to grow fast as demand exploded in retail.

Operations is often where founders bring in their first real leadership help: someone who can build systems so the founder can stay focused on growth.

Your customer’s experience doesn’t start when they see your ad—it starts when they actually receive your product or service. Fulfillment is about making sure what you deliver matches what you promised.

This could mean shipping out high-quality meat snacks like Chomps, onboarding a user into Canva’s intuitive design interface, or getting Rivian’s first electric trucks to early customers. In coaching and service businesses, fulfillment is often the delivery of client results. This is where referrals and retention come from. When you blow customers away, they come back. They tell friends. Fulfillment is how you earn lifetime value (LTV), not just one-time sales.

Even after you deliver, you’re not done. Customers will have questions. They’ll need help. And if they don’t feel supported, they’ll leave.

That’s where customer success comes in. It’s about onboarding, support, education, and making sure customers get real value. In subscription businesses especially, this is where you make—or lose—your money. Churn is the silent killer.

Spotify nails this. Their personalized recommendations, wrapped year-end summaries, and easy user interface keep people coming back—even if competitors offer similar features. They’ve built a product that feels like it knows you. That’s customer success in action.

It’s tempting to believe success is just about having the right idea. But ideas are cheap. Execution is what separates the visionaries from the legacy builders.

The best businesses have all six of these roles working in harmony. Early on, one person might juggle all of them. But over time, successful founders delegate, automate, or hire to fill the gaps. Because no matter how brilliant the visionary is, you can’t scale chaos.

Here’s how it all stacks up:

• Visionary sets the direction.
• Marketing generates leads.
• Sales converts those leads.
• Operations handles the mechanics.
• Fulfillment delivers the result.
• Customer Success keeps the customer coming back.

Take Canva: Melanie Perkins was the visionary. She saw the need for a simple design tool. But she needed a technical co-founder (product), strong marketing, and customer experience to make it stick. Now they’re valued at over $40 billion.

Or Liquid Death: Mike Cessario used marketing and brand to launch canned water into a lifestyle movement. But without the operations and logistics to keep up with demand, it would have buckled under its own virality.

Even Spotify: they dominated with product first, but retention and user engagement (customer success) is what keeps them at the top.

There’s no “right way” to build a business, but there is a complete way. And that way involves more than a good idea—it involves roles, structure, and systems.

Understanding and honoring each of these six roles isn’t just about delegation—it’s about longevity. Because whether you’re bootstrapping a startup or scaling to $100M, building the right team with the right focus ensures you’re not just sprinting… you’re building something that lasts.

And that’s the goal.